Hazel's

December Twenty-Seventh

For all Clair knew I was the same old me, going on with my life. However in reality I was sitting in a stress coma on a bean bag in my dorm staring at motionless objects. I stood up and walked across the room to my phone and put the back over the battery because it had fallen off when I had thrown it earlier. It made a sound and turned on. I had two new messages, a missed call, and a voicemail message from Clair. Hesitantly, I opened the messages.

Clair: Hey babe! Just checking in to see if you made up your mind about the holidays. My mom would be suuperr excited to see you again! Call me ASAP, mister! <3<3<3

Clair: Helloooo, Spencer?!?!

I sighed loudly and dialed her number. Holding it up to my ear, I listened to the monotonous tone as it seeped into my brain. Snapping back into reality, I heard a voice on the line.

"Oh my gosh, well thanks for finally calling me! Seriously, I've been waiting for like, three days," she ranted. I waited for a second before I heard a small sigh come from her. "I'm sorry for snapping at you Spence, it's just been stressful. So anyways, what are your plans for the holiday? Did you make up your mind about what you want to do?" she calmly spoke into the phone. Now was my turn to sigh as I struggled to put words together.

"Ok," I choked out uneasily. As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I regretted them. I knew that the holidays with Clair's family would be full of drama and anxiety. Honestly, I didn't know if I was ready for that yet.

"Yay!" she cheered. "I'll call her right away and let her know! See you later!" the phone line clicked and I felt sick. What would Kyle do, I asked myself. Would he lock himself in his room when it came time to go to Clair's house? Would he go and tell her entire family about the loss of his virginity? No. Kyle would keep his fucking mouth shut and get on with his life, and because Kyle would do that, so could I.

~ . ~ . ~

The packing didn't take long. In fact, the thing that took the longest was the phone call between me and my parents as I broke the news to them that I would not be spending the holidays with them. I suffered through thirty-six minutes of my mother yelling at me about how she wanted to meet Clair, and how it was extremely selfish of me to want to hide her from them. After apologizing profusely and begging for redemption, she accepted my apology and let me go on with my life. However, my father then started yelling at me about how he wants me to come visit and see the new car that he'd been working on for the past few months before he sold it to some car collector in Maine. He was almost more upset with me than my mom about that stupid car. So, I promised him that I would go up to visit in a couple weeks.

Three hours had passed since I'd hung up the phone, and one hour had gone by since I zipped up my full suitcase. Clair was planning on picking me up around 3:00 so we could get on the highway before rush hour. It was a good plan, and it meant that we would be arriving at her parent's house in only a six hour drive.

Kyle had come back to the room about thirty minutes ago and went through my suitcase so he could see what clothes I was bringing. He wanted to make sure that I didn't embarrass myself in front of the parents.

"Hey dude..." Kyle said with a tinge of disgust in his voice. I turned to face him from my bed.

"Yeah what's up?"

"... Are you seriously planning on bringing this?" he asked, pulling a blue tie out of my suitcase. Rolling my eyes, I snatched it from him and refolded it.

"Truth be told, yes, I am planning on bringing that. I'm surprised you didn't pick that up considering the fact that it was folded up in my zipped suitcase," I responded sarcastically.

"It's ugly," he remarked. I was just about to make a witty comeback when he opened his drawer and tossed me a sharp black tie with a grey pattern. "Wear that instead. Her mom'll think you're sexy". Laughing, I ran my fingers over the tie and looked at it. Classy. I tucked it into my bag and zipped it closed it for the third time.

"Hey dude, what time is it?" I asked him. He looked down at his watch and scrunched up his eyes.

"Uhmm... 2:45. When's Clair getting you?".

"3:00," I said, plugging my phone into it's charger for the fifteen minutes that I had to wait for Clair. "You never told me what you're doing for the holidays". Kyle looked over to me and smirked.

"Dude," he chuckled. "I'm going back to my dad's house because I have no girlfriend to celebrate with... but..." his tone changed from sarcastic to shy. "There is this girl in my improv class that's really nice". I looked over at his face and realized that his cheeks were beet red.

"Haha, oh Kyle. Ask her out already! What have you got to lose?" He looked over to me with a nervous look on his face.

"It's not that easy, Spencer. What if she says no? We still have five months left of freshman year and I'd have to see her three times a week. I would never be able to live with myself, I'd be so embarassed".

"When are you going to realize that the possibility of her saying yes is probably worth asking her. Would you rather be single dreaming about her every day not knowing how she feels about you or just ask her and get it over with? Who knows? Maybe she has some creepy stalking obsession over you that you wouldn't know about unless you asked her out to coffee?" that got his attention and he wrinkled his nose.

"Okay, okay fine! I'll ask her if she wants to meet me somewhere next Tuesday after class," he caved in, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. "On another note, have you thought any more about telling Clair about that girl?" the conversation shifted. I uncomfortably shifted from one foot to the other as I noticed my phone vibrating on the counter that displayed an incoming call from Claire, calling to tell me that she was in the parking lot. I unplugged my phone and threw my coat on as I pulled the handle up on my suitcase.

"I don't know what the fuck I'm doing," I muttered to Kyle. "Pray for me," I whispered as I left the room.

~ . ~ . ~

Late update? Whooopss.

XOXO - Stephanie :)